Author: Rudi Volti Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 9780716787327 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 356
Book Description
Provides a comprehensive introduction to the interactions of society and technology. The new fifth edition includes coverage of such timely topics as cloning, stem-cell research, genetically modified foods, terrorism, intellectual property, and the global impact of the internet.
Author: John Urry Publisher: Polity ISBN: 0745650376 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 223
Book Description
This book explores the significance of human behaviour to understanding the causes and impacts of changing climates and to assessing varied ways of responding to such changes. So far the discipline that has represented and modelled such human behaviour is economics. By contrast Climate Change and Society tries to place the ‘social’ at the heart of both the analysis of climates and of the assessment of alternative futures. It demonstrates the importance of social practices organised into systems. In the fateful twentieth century various interlocking high carbon systems were established. This sedimented high carbon social practices, engendering huge population growth, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the potentially declining availability of oil that made this world go round. Especially important in stabilising this pattern was the ‘carbon military-industrial complex’ around the world. The book goes on to examine how in this new century it is systems that have to change, to move from growing high carbon systems to those that are low carbon. Many suggestions are made as to how to innovate such low carbon systems. It is shown that such a transition has to happen fast so as to create positive feedbacks of each low carbon system upon each other. Various scenarios are elaborated of differing futures for the middle of this century, futures that all contain significant costs for the scale, extent and richness of social life. Climate Change and Society thus attempts to replace economics with sociology as the dominant discipline in climate change analysis. Sociology has spent much time examining the nature of modern societies, of modernity, but mostly failed to analyse the carbon resource base of such societies. This book seeks to remedy that failing. It should appeal to teachers and students in sociology, economics, environmental studies, geography, planning, politics and science studies, as well as to the public concerned with the long term future of carbon and society.
Author: Brady Wagoner Publisher: IAP ISBN: 1617357596 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 359
Book Description
This book brings together social sciencists to create an interdisciplinary dialogue on the topic of social change as a cultural process. Culture is as much about novelty as it is about tradition, as much about change as it is about stability. This dynamic tension is analyzed in collective protests, intergroup dynamics, language, mass media, science, community participation, art, and social transitions to capitalism, among others contexts. These diverse cases illustrate a number of key factors that can propel, slow-down and retract social change. An emancipatory and integrative social science is developed in this book, which offers a new explanatory model of human behavior and thought under conditions of institutional and societal change.
Author: Michael W. Apple Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 0415875323 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 202
Book Description
In this groundbreaking work, Apple pushes educators toward a more substantial understanding of what schools do and what we can do to challenge the relations of dominance and subordination in the larger society.
Author: Charles E. Lindblom Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN: 9780300056679 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 332
Book Description
Winner of the American Political Science Association’s 1991 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award for the best book published in the United States during 1990 on government, politics, or international affairs How do ordinary citizens, government officials, opinion leaders, or social scientists attempt to solve social problems? How competent are we at defining the problems, seeking information, and finding answers? In this important and controversial book, a distinguished social scientist meticulously analyzes our attempt to understand society so that we can reshape it. In so doing, he largely bypasses both epistemology and contemporary highly abstract theory on knowledge and society in order to acheive a far more concrete analysis of discourse and inquiry in social problem solving. There is a tragic discrepancy, argues Charles E. Lindblom, between our abilities to solve problems and the difficulty of the problems to be solved. We must make do with inadequate information and inconclusive analyses, for the task is less one of learning the truth than of proceeding in inquiry and decisions when the truth cannot be known. Lindblom discusses the many obstacles that prevent us from solving social problems, focusing in particular on learned incompetence. According to Lindblom, parents teach children not to think certain thoughts, and schools often engage more in indoctrination than education. Political rhetoric and commercial sales promotion feed a steady diet of misrepresentation. Social science does help. But because it is dependent on popular thought, it shares the impairments of thought found in both political figures and ordinary citizens. It also develops its own distinctive impairments and is to a degree crippled by its narrow view of scientific method--often more interested in proving than probing. Although social science can be improved in ways that Lindblom outlines in his book, social inquiry calls for such significant contributions from lay thought that it renders many conventional ideals of scientific problem solving inappropriate. Lindblom contends that the route to better social problem solving is not through either scientific or popular consensus or agreement, however much they are valued in the world of science and social science, but through a competition of ideas. The index of a society's competence, he states, is in its discord over ends, values, or purposes. "As usual, Lindblom cuts through to the core of the issue: How is society to understand its central problems and challenges? With originality and courage, he takes on the social scientists and the policy analysts, and presents an inspiring picture of a self-guiding democracy that continuously deliberates over means and ends. A signal contribution."--Robert B. Reich, Harvard University
Author: Tamara Jacka Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1107292298 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 327
Book Description
China's rapid economic growth, modernization and globalization have led to astounding social changes. Contemporary China provides a fascinating portrayal of society and social change in the contemporary People's Republic of China. This book introduces readers to key sociological perspectives, themes and debates about Chinese society. It explores topics such as family life, citizenship, gender, ethnicity, labour, religion, education, class and rural/urban inequalities. It considers China's imperial past, the social and institutional legacies of the Maoist era, and the momentous forces shaping it in the present. It also emphasises diversity and multiplicity, encouraging readers to consider new perspectives and rethink Western stereotypes about China and its people. Real-life case studies illustrate the key features of social relations and change in China. Definitions of key terms, discussion questions and lists of further reading help consolidate learning. Including full-colour maps and photographs, this book offers remarkable insight into Chinese society and social change.
Author: Alberto Alemanno Publisher: Icon Books ISBN: 178578286X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 188
Book Description
'We need effective citizen-lobbyists – not just likers, followers or even marchers – more than ever. I have no hesitation in lobbying you to read this book.' Bill Emmott, former editor in chief, the Economist Many democratic societies are experiencing a crisis of faith. Citizens are making clear their frustration with their supposedly representative governments, which instead seem driven by the interests of big business, powerful individuals and wealthy lobby groups. What can we do about it? How do we fix democracy and get our voices heard? The answer, argues Alberto Alemanno, is to become change-makers – citizen lobbyists. By using our skills and talents and mobilizing others, we can bring about social and political change. Whoever you are, you've got power, and this book will show you how to unleash it. From successfully challenging Facebook's use of private data to abolishing EU mobile phone roaming charges, Alberto highlights the stories of those who have lobbied for change, and shows how you can follow in their footsteps, whether you want to influence immigration policy, put pressure on big business or protect your local community.
Author: John Sutton Publisher: Pine Forge Press ISBN: 9780761987055 Category : Family & Relationships Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
A core text for the Law and Society or Sociology of Law course offered in Sociology, Criminal Justice, Political Science, and Schools of Law. * John Sutton offers an explicitly analytical perspective to the subject - how does law change? What makes law more or less effective in solving social problems? What do lawyers do? * Chapter 1 contrasts normative and sociological perspectives on law, and presents a brief primer on the logic of research and inference as it is applied to law related issues. * Theories of legal change are discussed within a common conceptual framework that highlights the explantory strengths and weaknesses of different arguments. * Discussions of "law in action" are explicitly comparative, applying a consistent model to explain the variable outcomes of civil rights legislation. * Many concrete, in-depth examples throughout the chapters.
Author: Daniel Chirot Publisher: Elsevier ISBN: 1483271412 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
Social Change in a Peripheral Society: The Creation of a Balkan Colony focuses on the nature of social change in peripheral societies, societies on the margins of the capitalist European world that have been absorbed by the dynamic industrial economies and turned into "colonial or "neocolonial societies. This book emphasizes the theory of an interdependent world-system dominated by core societies that subject, by direct or indirect means, peripheral societies. Studies on several peripheral societies, primarily those in the contemporary "third world, that are in the former colonies of Europe in Latin America, Asia, and Africa are also described. This text likewise explains the tremendous vitality of European capitalism by deliberating the difference between Ottoman and capitalist exploitation of Romania. This publication is beneficial to historians, economists, and anthropologists interested in the social change in peripheral society.
Author: Graeme Snooks Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134775717 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 510
Book Description
This book discusses the nature and process of change in human society over the past two million years. The author draws on economic, historical and biological concepts to examine the driving forces of change and looks to likely developments in the future. This analysis produces some very thought-provoking and controversial conclusions.
Author: Rudi Volti
Author: John Urry
Author: Brady Wagoner
Author: Michael W. Apple
Author: Charles E. Lindblom
Author: Tamara Jacka
Author: Alberto Alemanno
Author: John Sutton
Author: Daniel Chirot
Author: Graeme Snooks